Trip to VA

We had a great trip home for Thanksgiving. We were there a whole week. We got to see a lot of old friends we haven't seen in a long time and it was great. Thomas turned one and we had his party with family. We had 2 Thanksgiving meals in 1 day. It was a lot of fun.
On the way home, our van, which we just spent $1200 on the past few weeks started acting up again. It is so frustrating. We went to church at University Christian Church downtown this weekend because we had the weekend off and the van stalled out at every stop light on the way home. It was very scary and frustrating to us. Anyway, despite the van troubles, we have so much to be thankful for.
We will be shopping tonight for our adopted family. I cant wait. We decided this year to cut way back on what we spend for each other and our families and focus our spending on a needy family. We got our family and it is a single mom with 2 boys, 4 and 6, from a domestic abuse situation who relocated to Cincinnati recently and doesn't have a job yet. I think it will be so awesome for Jeremiah to pick out what he would like and then give it away. I kind of wish i could see him give it to the kids, but we chose to do it anonymously. I'm excited. I really want to instill a trait of giving in my kids. It is so rewarding.









Here are a few pics of them in front of the Christmas tree in their Christmas jammie's. I am a PJ-aholic if you didn't know. I love pajamas. I love buying them and dressing them in them, esp Thomas' age. I thought this may be the last year I can get Jeremiah to wear footed pj's so I jumped on these cute matching ones.

Merry Christmas to ME!!!

Wow- so we just ate at City BBQ in Eastgate and i went to get Jeremiah a root beer out of the tub and saw my favorite drink EVER! Cheerwine in a glass bottle. Cheerwine is a NC thing that you can NOT get in Ohio. My family knows and keeps me stocked when they visit me, but now i have somewhere and only 5 minutes from my house. I immediately found the manager and told him this was my new favorite restaurant b/c of the cheerwine and how you cant get i anywhere in Ohio. He asked if I was from NC and said to come see him after I ate and he'd give me some to take home. So we ate and I went up to see him, the man gave me a whole case of 24 Cheerwines. I about passed out. That is the best Christmas present ever. I am so happy about this. The glass bottles are even hard to find in NC but they taste amazing. Wow- so Toby is the man and City BBQ is my new fav!!!!

Fun times at the mall!

Jaya, Jeremiah, and Thomas

We went with our friend Myndee to see Santa on Sunday night. We were hoping the babies(Thomas-11months and Jaya-18months) would see Jeremiah like him and not cry. That didn't happen. Thomas and Jaya both cried big tears. They wouldn't let me take pictures so this is as good as it gets, but you get the picture.

also, here is a picture of Jeremiah and his Bday present from Dave and I. He wants to be a golfer like his daddy so we got him his first set of clubs to get him going.

5th Birthday Party

Here are a few of our pictures from the party.















We had Jeremiah's 5th birthday party today and boy was it COLD. We debated last weekend or this one since his actual birthday was the 6th, but chose to do it today. Man, it was windy and cold. We had a good turn out and the kids all had fun(aside from mostly all of them crying at some point for wrecking their bikes).
We had both sets of parents in town which was a lot of fun for both the boys. Jeremiah racked up on starwars characters and especially on transformers. We(mainly Dave) have been working on them all night since the party. I hate it went so fast and we rushed through but this isn't NC and we may not be able to continue to keep the outside birthday party tradition here.

my boys

School Halloween Party

Jeremiah loves Oreos-especially since he couldnt have the cupcakes
Snack time- Oreos, apples and caramel and apple cider- YUM
Storytime- The Big Pumpkin- They loved this book and sang along with it. It was very cute. They had been reading it for a few weeks.
Kemar- this kid is just so darn cute. I love his hair.
2 cute little Ariel's

Jeremiah had a good time. The preschoolers paraded around the school in their costumes. It was fun to see them all so excited. Would have taken more pictures of the kids but the camera ran out of batteries, imagine that!

Halloween

Jacob, Jeremiah,Thomas, Caleb, and Asher
We went to Bethel, Ohio to trick or treat with some friends of ours.
It was fun. They had all the business open and giving out candy. Our favorite was Domino's was giving out slices of pizza. The kids favorite was right next to it the Cut right Tobacco store was giving out candy cigarettes. That was very fitting.